Heartfelt
by marysverse
Summary: A dilemma and a secret.


A/N: this may be drunken musings

She wanted to do it. Really it wasn't right that way. This was one thing he should not have to bear.

To carry that with him forever, just didn't feel right. Maybe it was wrong, maybe she shouldn't do it. Maybe she should just turn over and go back to sleep. After all, the cat would definitely be out of the bag if she did.

And then she'd have Clark to deal with, questioning her every move. Making her feel guilty for trying to do the right thing.

And what is right? What is wrong? Who is to judge? Sure there's been speculation, but if they/him/her/it are the ultimate judgers, than no right or wrong could exist. Mere mortals could not be adequate.

It was small but large. Important but trivial, who was she to deem which was which. And why now, why when absence was all she had felt when she had really needed it? Why creep on her like the butt end of a cruel joke? Why come strangely folding on the chronology of her life, sadistically skipping when it had been the most important.

When she would have swallowed any consequence to able to do it.

Hypothetically, she does it. Just reaches over and does it. He wouldn't feel a thing. Of course the freak out in the morning would be inevitable. No way was he not going to notice.

Well, he could attribute the lack of pain to the really good prescription painkillers they gave him. But the bandage would eventually come off. And surprise!

Of course he wouldn't rest until he found the who, what, where, when, why and how. Honestly, he missed his calling as a journalist.

And then there would come the recriminations. Why she didn't share it, why she kept another secret, even though this one was her very own to guard from whom ever she chose. It was never that simple though.

Clark would look at her with the spark of doubt, maybe she never had lost it in the first place, maybe she selfishly didn't use it when…when it had mattered the most. He would never ask, he would just add it to his growing list of suspicions about her. A list he started ever since she first learned his alien heritage.

She had made her fair share of mistakes, but why were hers the only ones he ever remembered?

And the man lying next to her. How would he react? Should it matter how he would react? She didn't want to acknowledge the scared little girl inside her that was terrified he would reject her for it.

But she wasn't that girl anymore. The days when she allowed love to rule her life were way past.

Was she falling for him? Absolutely. But she wouldn't fall apart when it didn't work out, when he woke up and realized his mistake. When he realized he didn't have to be with her to be a hero. Just because she brought him back into the fold.

She would handle it and be professional, so his reaction could not be a factor in this. What would she do if this was a perfect stranger with the same burden?

With that she reached out her hand, laying it lightly over his chest. He murmured in discomfort from her feather light touch, the white gauze of the bandage soft against her palm.

She breathed out slow and focused. It was hard to describe the sensation. She didn't know where the power really came from. She couldn't feel it in any particular part of her body. It was more like it was being drawn from every part of her body. A wave being pulled down from her head and up from her feet to flow out of her hand.

She felt the first slash and gasped silently at the pain. She prepared herself for the second slash but still felt breathless from the agony. The third thankfully was blissfully dull compared to the way the rest the injury sizzled. It was worse than she remembered it.

Clark had to use his laser vision on her once; it had hurt, but nothing like this. But then again, Zod probably didn't care if he had burned right through him.

The pressure on her chest felt like it was mounting as the fire bloomed across her chest. Unable to lie still any longer, she slipped as quietly as possible from the bed and gathered her things.

It was getting worse and worse. This had never happened before. The initial pain was always the worst. Her body should have been healing it; the familiar itchy sensation of mending wounds should have kicked in.

She somehow managed to stagger to her Watchtower, remembering to rearm the security in a haze and then gratefully, oblivion took her.


End file.
